Heat pumps and global residential heating

Panel: 6. Policies and programmes towards a zero-energy building stock

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Authors:
Tina Fawcett, ECI-CREDS, University of Oxford - Environmental Change Institute, United Kingdom
Nick Eyre, University of Oxford
Russell Layberry, University of Oxford

Abstract

Electrification is seen as an important global contributor to mitigation of climate change, because low carbon electricity can, in theory, replace current fossil fuel use in buildings and surface transport. Heat pumps are the key technology for delivering electrification of heating. This paper investigates how heat pump adoption in the residential sector would affect total and peak electricity demand globally and for individual countries. It also analyses the role of improving efficiency in reducing heating energy demand.

A model of global heating energy use has been developed. This geographical model uses historical population-weighted temperature data, and assumptions about heating energy use and the efficiency of heat pumps to give peak instantaneous demand, calculated at three-hourly time steps. Results show that heating energy need is dominated globally by China, which is responsible for almost 40% of the total. For the UK, 100% adoption of heat pumps would increase national electricity demand by 25%, and peak electricity demand by 65%. The peak: mean heating ratio is 4.1 and would change from the current total electricity peak:mean ratio from 1.58 to 2.11. Globally, 100% heat pump adoption would require 11% of current world electricity use and increase peak demand by 65%. This peak electricity capacity is unlikely to be delivered, given the huge costs entailed.

Options for reducing the peak: mean ratio, including international interconnection, and using back-up heating systems at times of extreme cold, have been modelled. The model is then used to look at how results would change with a variety of climate change scenarios, and with energy service demand. In particular, scenarios with a much more insulated building stock are explored – highlighting the importance of efficiency in enabling a scenario with high heat pump uptake. Thus the modelling results are linked with real world concerns and policy options, to deliver a more sophisticated understanding of the challenges of mass heat pump adoption.

[Please note – more modelling will be completed prior to the deadline for the final paper, so further results will be available.]